Here at Ellucian, we are motivated by a mission ~ the power of education to transform lives and change the world.  We are the global market leader in EdTech for Higher Education, serving more than 2,900 customers and reaching over 22 million students in 50+ countries.  We are dedicated to helping Higher Ed thrive by transforming their institutions to agile, digitally connected campuses that enable student success.

This is a hybrid role in Reston, VA or Malvern, PA. 

Ellucian is looking for a Senior Director of Solutions Marketing to join our organization reporting to our Senior Vice President of Marketing. In this role, you will lead the Product Solution Marketing vision, strategy, and team based on a deep understanding of our customer, their needs and the marketplace. You’ll play a pivotal role in ensuring we are positioned as the clear choice for Higher Education institutional leaders, operating at the intersection of Product Development, Sales Strategy & Operations, CX, and other Marketing teams to communicate our unique value proposition in innovative and impactful ways. You will be responsible for ensuring we build, develop, and retain a world-class team to market the full portfolio of Ellucian’s solutions and services.
Our ideal candidate must be technically oriented and also a strong storyteller, able to leverage a background in growing cloud and SaaS businesses to map a complex set of personas and needs to a robust portfolio of solutions and distill this into powerful and differentiated messages.
A thought leader who thrives in a collaborative environment, you will serve as the customer expert, guiding your team to solve complex problems, driving to clarity from ambiguity and pushing them to think differently from and beyond what already exists in the market to serve evolving customer needs. Because you’re a team player who knows that your leadership record is just as important as your knowledge of products or markets, and who likes to roll up your sleeves and get things done, you will lead by example, coaching and inspiring your team to achieve our aggressive business goals and their personal growth goals.

Where you will make an impact

• Lead a team that oversees a portfolio of new and existing software solutions that require effective GTM Strategies.
• Evaluate and refine our current messaging and positioning to create cohesive GTM strategy that focuses on vertical solutions and includes unique positioning to achieve demand generation and industry recognition goals and is communicated consistently throughout the customer journey
• Develop and maintain understanding of buyer and influencer persona profiles, aligning key messages to critical needs throughout the buyers’ journeys
• Influence and oversee the creation of product positioning, value proposition development, and cross-channel content marketing to successfully engage target audience.
• Create a culture of launch excellence
• Build effective cross-team processes and capabilities to support delivery
• Ensure marketing strategy aligns across channels and partners, to communicate to stakeholders most effectively.
• Partner with campaigns team to ensure alignment to product value-story, to consistently deliver new leads, helping to facilitate and collapse the sales cycle to drive more closed deals.
• Align product marketing KPIs with organizational goals. Monitor and evaluate campaign progress, making changes when necessary to achieve desired outcomes.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders – Drive and manage relationships with key stakeholders to maximize market impact.
• Collaborate with product to most effectively position solutions in the market, promote enhancements and support release updates
• Partner with Product Management to constantly identify persuasive product metrics to drive market credibility.
• Oversee Content Development - Use market research, competitive intelligence and VOC from partner stakeholders to create compelling product positioning delivered via a variety of vehicles.
• Serves at the Content Strategist for ongoing virtual user and prospect events, partnering with product management, field marketing, and sales to ensure content plans are aligned to market needs
• Inform product and marketing strategy by staying on the cutting edge of higher education market trends, the digital ecosystem, customer behaviors, new opportunities, geographic differences and competitive threats
• Equip our sales teams to win more deals with messaging, sales strategies, materials, tools, and market knowledge, with the aim of increasing close rate

 
What you will bring

• 10+ years of product marketing experience in enterprise software (SaaS preferred).
• Director-level experience of marketing SaaS tech solution to the market and deep understanding of the marketplace.
• Successful track record of high-impact product and portfolio marketing in technology industry, with proven success leading complex, high-impact launch efforts.
• Experience developing and leveraging personas and journey maps, tailoring messaging to target buyers based on their needs and journey stages.
• Ability to develop and manage product and customer lifecycles to meet ROI and profitability expectations and work across of the relevant stakeholders.
• Strong opinions and recommendations for bold, industry-disruptive communications that drive results.
• Skilled at clearly explaining ideas, creating compelling arguments, and delivering visual and verbal information to various audiences for maximum impact. Flexing communication skills to gain stakeholder buy-in.
• Comfortable in front of leadership and have a compelling voice demonstrated through your executive presence and ability to lead change.
• Expertise in using marketing tools, marketing automation, and rolling a Go-To-Market strategy into an enterprise-wide integrated marketing plan.
• Strong analytical capabilities to analyze target audience market research, competitive intelligence and in-house end to end conversion metrics (and others) to develop sound marketing strategies and measure results. Experience with creative execution using a variety of marketing tools and channels.
• Demonstrated budget and ROI management activity. Our marketing must deliver a specific ROI target to the organization, and we need an accountable, metrics/data driven marketing leader.
• Energetic, passionate and articulate communicator who can convey information to a wide variety of internal and external audiences, write and deliver quality presentations that are adjusted by audience, and articulate complex, technical information
• Ability to communicate and collaborate cross-functionally to ensure adoption and execution of consistent messaging

• Comprehensive health coverage: medical, dental, and vision
• Flexible time off 
• Thrive Flex Program that allows you to contribute towards your health, financial or learning interests
• 401k w/ match & Bright Plan - to help you save for the future
• Maternity & Paternity Leave
• Charitable leave – 40 hours/year
• Telemedicine
• Wellness
  • Ginger (mental health)
  • Wellbeats (virtual fitness classes)
• Rethink – caregiver support
• Diversity and inclusion programs which provide access to 11 internal employee resource groups
• Tuition Reimbursement Assistance
• Professional development opportunities

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